Nighthawks, after Hopper

By Ford, Frank Bernard

The world, of course, is dead.
                It was my father's as this could
be Nickel Charlie's, the all-night restaurant
next to Loew's Poli in New Haven where he'd repair
after the graveyard shift on the Journal-Courier.

                A linotype operator his fingers
swam beside a window propped up by Four Roses
against a smothering night. Wasn't, though, this
lead and whiskey universe he died from since

he retired punching the copy out of tape under
                a livid, technical flourescence - which
is of my world of course. And I must
                sit among these waiting nighthawks
to become

the one who shows a slice of face and who observes
                the hard-edged guy, nondescript
in the dark suit of his time with gray fe-
                dora and black band. I wear
it too, sniffing the coffee, hearing the chromium hiss
                of the polished urns, watching
the redhead

                check her nails. Diner of
the Heart.
A blondish counterman thrusts down his arms
                like old women washing clothes
in the rivers which erode exhausted cities.
                The redhead played
367 for a year and it came out
the day she stopped. I say nothing,
having myself run out

of numbers, bad luck entombed
in the wool of my suit.

But then I mumble past
                the obligation of our unconcern
that I'll play it, three, six, seven staring out at nothing from the bright space
                of terror. She says play a quarter
for me.